Report: War Rationale Based on CIA Error

Following the release of a Senate report harshly criticizing U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis, the focus will soon shift to whether and how to make sweeping changes to the intelligence community.

After a yearlong investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee released nearly 120 conclusions about the intelligence community's performance on estimating the threat from Iraq, found primarily in a 2002 assessment that served as the Bush administration's leading arguments for war.

Following release of the 511-page review Friday, the panel's top Democrat, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said three-quarters of senators would not have voted to authorize the invasion if they had known how weak the intelligence was.

In the unanimously approved report, senators concluded that the CIA kept key information from its own and other agencies' analysts; engaged in "group think" by failing to challenge the assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and allowed President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to make false statements.

"Most, if not all, of these problems stem from a broken corporate culture and poor management," which won't be fixed simply by giving the agency more money or people, the report said.

Among much-discussed reform proposals, some have suggested centralizing the intelligence community under a Cabinet-level Director of National Intelligence who would oversee the roughly $40 billion budget of the 15-agency intelligence apparatus. Currently, the CIA director also oversees the intelligence community, but he doesn't control the vast majority of the money.

Deputy Central Intelligence Director John McLaughlin, who said the CIA and other agencies are adapting and making internal reforms, urged caution against disruptions while the nation is in the middle of the anti-terror fight. "Some sort of reordering of the boxes here will not bring you perfection in the intelligence business," he said.

But politics may play more of a role in reforms than anything else. Few believe significant changes will happen before the November election.

The report was yet another blow to the credibility of the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence agencies. The committee concluded that key assertions used to justify the Iraq war — that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to build nuclear weapons — were either wrong or overblown.

Bush called the report a useful accounting of intelligence agencies' shortcomings. He defended the decision to go to war, however, as well as his prewar assertions about Saddam's government and weapons of mass destruction.

"We haven't found the stockpiles, but we knew he could make them," the president said. "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."

Although senators from both parties agreed in harshly criticizing the CIA, Democrats and Republicans clashed over whether administration officials had pressured intelligence analysts to reach predetermined conclusions on the Iraq threat. Democrats said there was pressure; Republicans said there were tough questions but no inappropriate influence.

Democrats also said the investigation should have examined whether the White House had twisted the intelligence it received — a second phase of the probe that probably won't be finished until after the elections.

"The fact is that when it comes to national security, the buck stops at the White House, not anywhere else," said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The report comes as Bush looks for a new leader for the intelligence community. CIA Director George Tenet has resigned, effective Sunday, and McLaughlin will take over as a temporary replacement. But the report's across-the-board criticism of the CIA could indicate that any nominee from within the intelligence community would have a tough time winning confirmation by the Senate.

McLaughlin said the CIA is learning from its mistakes and has already made changes, including adding reviews from a "devil's advocate" perspective to all future national intelligence estimates.

"We get it," McLaughlin said at a rare news conference at CIA headquarters. "Although we think the judgments were not unreasonable when they were made nearly two years ago, we understand with all we have learned since then that we could have done better."

Among conclusions in the report:

_Most major judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq's alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were "either overstated or were not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting."

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